Category Archives: Conservation

Controversial bill to protect Tasmanian salmon industry passes despite environmental concerns

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Critics say industry threatens the endangered Maugean skate and laws were rushed through with ’no proper process’

Controversial legislation to protect the Tasmanian salmon industry has passed parliament after the government guillotined debate to bring on a vote in the Senate on Wednesday night.

Government and Coalition senators voted in favour of the bill, which was designed to bring an end to a formal reconsideration by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, into whether an expansion of fish farming in Macquarie harbour in 2012 was properly approved.

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Charity faces legal action after relocated elephants in Malawi allegedly kill 10 people

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People living near Kasungu national park say they are living in fear after translocation of 263 elephants by International Fund for Animal Welfare

People living on the edge of a protected area in Malawi are taking legal action against an NGO that moved more than 250 elephants into the area, which they say have killed at least 10 people.

Villagers near Kasungu national park, which is Malawi’s second largest and crosses the Zambian border, say they are living in fear for their livelihoods and safety after 263 elephants were introduced in July 2022, causing a sharp spike in human-wildlife conflict. Ten people claiming to be affected by the translocation from Liwonde national park have begun legal action against the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), demanding that the conservation NGO construct adequate fencing to protect the 167 villages around the park and compensate local people for the damage caused by the elephants.

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Bob Brown urges Greens to punish Labor at election if Albanese amends law to protect salmon farming

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PM’s pledge to protect Tasmanian industry will weaken laws already failing to protect natural sites and at-risk species, environmentalists say

Former Greens leader Bob Brown has urged the minor party not to preference Labor ahead of the Liberal party in Tasmanian seats at the upcoming election if the Albanese government legislates to effectively exempt salmon farming from national environment laws.

Conservationists have sharply criticised Anthony Albanese’s pledge that he will rush through legislation next week to protect the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour, on the state’s west coast, from the potential results of a long-running legal review.

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West Papuan Indigenous people call for KitKat boycott over alleged ecocide

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Thousands of acres of rainforest is being cleared to produce palm oil, used in popular Nestlé and Mondelēz brands

West Papua’s Indigenous people have called for a boycott of KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, Oreo biscuits and Ritz crackers, and the cosmetics brands Pantene and Herbal Essences, over alleged ecocide in their territory.

All are products that contain palm oil and are made, say the campaigners, by companies that source the ingredient directly from West Papua, which has been under Indonesian control since 1963 and where thousands of acres of rainforest are being cleared for agriculture.

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Hope for endangered penguins as no-fishing zones agreed off South Africa

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Deal will restrict fishing near colonies on Robben Island and Bird Island for 10 years, after long debate between industry and conservationists

Efforts to stop the critically endangered African penguin from going extinct took a step forward on Tuesday after South African conservationists and fishing industry groups reached a legal settlement on no-fishing zones around six of the penguins’ major breeding colonies.

Sardine and anchovy fishing will not be allowed for 12 miles (20km) around the penguin colony off Cape Town on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and Bird Island, across the bay from Gqeberha, also known as Port Elizabeth. There will be more limited closures around four other colonies, according to a court order formalising the agreement.

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Once named world’s ugliest animal, blobfish wins New Zealand’s fish of the year

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Made up of blobby tissue and living deep in the ocean, the distinctive species beat the longfin eel and pygmy pipehorse in the annual contest

It was once crowned the “world’s ugliest animal” and now the disgruntled-looking gelatinous blobfish has a new gong to its name: New Zealand’s fish of the year.

The winning species of blobfish, Psychrolutes marcidus, lives in the highly pressurised depths off the coasts of New Zealand and Australia and has developed a unique anatomy to exist. Blobfish do not have a swim bladder, a full skeleton, muscles or scales. Instead, their bodies are made up of blobby tissue with a lower density than water that allows them to float above the seafloor.

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Storrington in West Sussex named UK’s first European stork village

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Village joins continental network alongside nearby Knepp estate, as birds previously extinct in Britain flourish

The Saxons knew the West Sussex village of Storrington as Estorchestone, the “abode of the storks”.

But the graceful white birds disappeared from its skies more than 600 years ago, when they became extinct in Britain.

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‘All the birds returned’: How a Chinese project led the way in water and soil conservation

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The Loess plateau was the most eroded place on Earth until China took action and reversed decades of damage from grazing and farming

It was one of China’s most ambitious environmental endeavours ever.

The Loess plateau, an area spanning more than 245,000 sq miles (640,000 sq km) across three provinces and parts of four others, supports about 100 million people. By the end of the 20th century, however, this land, once fertile and productive, was considered the most eroded place on Earth, according to a documentary by the ecologist John D Liu.

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National Trust creates living gene bank of endangered native black poplar

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Cuttings of tree captured by John Constable being planted on restored Devon floodplain

Captured by John Constable in one of his most celebrated paintings, the black poplar tree was once as common as oak and beech in Britain.

Now the rarest and most threatened native species in the country, the National Trust is creating a living gene bank of the black poplar to ensure Constable’s The Hay Wain does not become a tribute to an extinct breed.

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Butterfly population in US shrinking by 22% over last 20 years, study shows

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Drop in line with rate of overall insect loss as scientists point to habitat loss, pesticide use and the climate crisis

Butterflies may be among the most beloved of all creatures, routinely deified in art and verse, but they are in alarming decline in the United States with populations plummeting by a fifth in just the past two decades, according to the most comprehensive study yet of their fortunes.

The abundance of butterflies in the US slumped 22% between 2000 and 2020, the new analysis of more than 76,000 mostly regional surveys, published in Science, found. For every five butterflies fluttering daintily around at the start of the century, just four remain today.

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‘You just hope for the best’: rarely seen froglets – the length of a grain of rice – released into small patch of Victorian wilds

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Exclusive: More than 3,000 critically endangered Baw Baw frogs set free in a high-altitude forest to bolster dwindling population

More than 3,000 critically endangered Baw Baw frogs have been released in Victoria’s east as part of a record-breaking conservation breeding program.

Zoos Victoria’s reintroduction of 3,000 tiny froglets and 40 adult frogs into the high-altitude forests of the Baw Baw plateau, about 120km east of Melbourne, was the largest in its breeding program for the species.

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Spain’s rewilding of Iberian lynx at risk after lobbying by hunters and farmers

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Regional governments bow to pressure from agricultural industry, often amplified by far-right Vox party

Only last year it was hailed as a conservation success story: the Iberian lynx, which had been close to extinction, had sprung back to life thanks to a two-decade-long effort to expand the population.

Now, however, that progress is at risk after several regional governments in Spain acceded to pressure from farmers and hunters to block the reintroduction of the species into the wild.

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Mystery donor’s £17.5m gift could turn Scottish estate into rewilding showcase

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Scottish Wildlife Trust plans to create rainforest, restore peatland and end deer stalking on Highland sporting estate

Scottish conservationists hope to convert a Highland sporting estate into a rewilding showcase after a mystery benefactor gave them more than £17.5m to buy it.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), best known for its small nature reserves, has bought Inverbroom estate near Ullapool in north-west Scotland, complete with an 11-bedroom lodge that boasts an indoor swimming pool.

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UK bumblebee numbers fell to lowest on record in 2024, shows data

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Bumblebees declined by almost a quarter compared with the 2010-2023 average, according to conservation charity

Figures show 2024 was the worst year for bumblebees in the UK since records began.

Bumblebee numbers declined by almost a quarter compared with the 2010-2023 average, according to data from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. The researchers said the drop was probably due to the cold and wet conditions in the UK last spring.

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Mass firings hamstring federal land agencies and wildfire response

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Concerns are mounting that depleting already thinned ranks will only hamper extreme weather response efforts

Federal agencies that play crucial roles in administering conservation, recreation and resource development across roughly than 640m acres of the nation’s public lands were thrust into a state of chaos this week after the Trump administration fired thousands of federal workers, leaving key operational gaps in its wake.

The agencies are also on the frontline of mitigating the escalating effects from the climate crisis and concerns are mounting that the depletion of already thinned ranks will only hamper efforts to respond and recover from extreme weather events.

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Norway to open protected rivers to hydropower plants

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Green politicians describe plan as ‘a historic attack on Norwegian nature’

The Norwegian parliament has voted to open up protected rivers to hydropower plants, prompting fury from conservation groups who fear for the fate of fish and other wildlife.

The bill allows power plants bigger than 1MW to be built in protected waterways if the societal benefit is “significant” and the environmental consequences “acceptable”. It was voted through on Thursday as part of measures to improve flood and landslide protection.

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World’s largely unprotected peatlands are ticking ‘carbon bomb’, warns study

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Bogs and swamps are a colossal carbon store but their continued destruction would blow climate change targets

The world’s peatlands are “dangerously underprotected” despite the colossal amount of climate-heating carbon dioxide already being emitted due to their destruction, a study has warned.

Peatlands occupy just 3% of all land, but contain more carbon than all of the world’s forests. However, farmers and miners are draining the peatlands, releasing so much CO2 that if they were a country, they would be the fourth biggest polluter in the world after China, the US and India.

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Love rats: Canadians get chance to feed rodents named after old flames to owls

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Program is meant to help the endangered northern spotted owl – and it’s only C$5! – but rat lovers are not amused

Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. And for an endangered owl breeding program in Canada, it’s also a dish best served dead.

For the price of a coffee, spurned and disgruntled lovers can revel in the satisfaction of having a dead rat named after an ex, before it is fed to a northern spotted owl.

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Australian scientists produce kangaroo embryos using IVF for first time

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Team has produced more than 20 embryos using method used in humans, though there are no plans for live joeys

Scientists have produced kangaroo embryos through in vitro fertilisation for the first time, in a development they say could help conservation of endangered animals.

Australian researchers at the University of Queensland made the eastern grey kangaroo embryos using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a technique widely used in human IVF, in which a sperm is injected into a mature egg.

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Campaigners hail ‘important victory’ in protection of England’s national parks

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Minister says there was error when Manningtree station car park extension was approved under last government

Campaigners have celebrated an “important victory” in a closely watched case that will determine whether the government will enforce new legislation aimed at protecting national parks and landscapes in England.

Dedham Vale is a designated “national landscape” on the border of Essex and Suffolk, home to increasingly rare species including hazel dormice and hedgehogs. Within it is Manningtree station, where the train operator Greater Anglia built an extension to the car park to cope with increased traffic.

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